


Five Passions

by Rod



Series: Parallel Lines [13]
Category: Veritas: The Quest
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buddhist philosophy holds that five passions entangle the lives of men. Cal runs through all of them during the team's time with a neo-Celtic community.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Passions

## I. Hatred

She's not good enough for his Nicky. Cal's not in a mood to argue about this so it's just as well that he's not saying it out loud, but he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this Fiona doesn't have what it takes to be Nikko's girlfriend.

It doesn't matter that he's never seen her, he's heard quite enough. He's been thinking about it throughout the trip up here, Vincent being the stellar conversationalist that he is, and the facts are incontrovertible. She lives out in the ass end of nowhere, which is going to make a long-distance relationship hard for starters. She's deeply into this happy clappy pagan crap rather than anything scientific. She isn't nearly smart enough to keep up with Nikko. Hell, she probably isn't even fit enough to keep up with Nikko, but Cal has to admit that is pretty difficult. She might have a pretty face and a nice personality, almost certainly in fact since Nikko has standards, but she hasn't got anything that makes her truly worthy of him.

Cal's almost looking forward to meeting her.

*****

## II. Desire

Guh.

Cal's trying to think, really he is, but all that's coming out at the moment is "guh." It's all Nikko's fault. If he wasn't standing there wearing a kilt, Cal wouldn't be thinking about what's under the kilt and more importantly what's not, and Cal's brain wouldn't have shut down. He wouldn't be appreciating the lithe legs that are showing either, or the way Nikko can make a simple linen shirt look so amazingly sexy.

He has got to have words with his hormones about this.

Seriously, Cal knows he needs to get his act together before Dr Zond and Vincent realise that he's drooling. He's not actually drooling, at least he hopes not, but he bets that right now he looks like someone has slapped him about the face with a wet fish. Fortunately the others are too busy trying to embarrass Nikko about his choice of clothing, and there went that train of thought again.

It's only after he shuts his mouth that Cal realises he's said anything at all. And it's only after he plays it back in his head and hears what an incoherent ass he has just made of himself that he realises that he used his pet name for Nikko.

He has _got_ to have words with his hormones about this.

*****

## III. Grief

Stepping back into the motel room, Cal knows instantly that something's wrong. He's used to the way that Nikko fills a room with his presence, and he can't feel it. The little noises Nikko makes because he just can't keep still aren't there.

Cal checks the bathroom anyway, hoping that this is just another of Nikko's pranks, but his gut is already freezing up with fear. Nikko's gone, a cursory search confirms that, and Cal knows all too well how serious that is. It hasn't escaped his notice that tonight is the Fire Festival and if even half of their theories about the celtic sarcophagus are true, Nikko's going to die. Soon. And it'll be all Cal's fault.

Some assistant he's turned out to be. Dr Zond asked him to stick with Nikko in the motel room, and he couldn't even do that. He went out for snacks of all damn stupid things, and left Nikko an easy target for these kooky cultists. Cal's not even beginning to think about how much better Nikko is at self-defence than he is, he simply knows that they wouldn't have taken Nikko if he had been there. But he wasn't, so they did.

He's still standing there in a daze when the others come back. He accepts the order to stay behind meekly, ignoring the look of sympathy that Vincent shoots at him. This is his post, and he won't abandon it again.

Then they leave, and Cal is grateful. He's alone now, so it doesn't matter if he cries.

*****

## IV. Anger

Waiting in the motel room, Cal's finished freaking out now. That's getting to be a depressingly frequent state of affairs; it seems like every other week Nikko says something or does something or more usually has something done to him, and Cal freaks. Usually whatever happened has been resolved by the time he finishes freaking — often enough it's resolved before he even starts — but this time he's still waiting.

He's beginning to regret having agreed to stay behind, because now he's stopped being afraid he's getting angry instead. He wants to find the people responsible for this and make them pay. They are not going to get away with this; if Cal has to seal them inside their own sarcophagi he's determined that they aren't going to kill any more teenagers.

And if they have killed his Nicky, then they'll just wish he'd done something as simple as kill them. Cal is a trained anthropologist and an excellent researcher, and he's come across a lot of cultures that had highly developed techniques for making people suffer. He knows where to find texts on Torquemada alone that go into more detail than most people ever want to know.

Right now, he's almost mad enough to want to know.

*****

## V. Joy

Nikko's safe. His Nicky is safe, and Cal doesn't care which deity wants to claim the credit, at this point he'll thank anyone.

He drove like a mad thing to get to the mine once he got Dr Zond's call. Hearing the words was one thing, but he needed to see Nikko for himself before he'd really believe it. So he did, and as he caught sight of that familiar form in the early morning light he could almost feel the sun rise inside himself.

He can't do what he really wants, of course. Even if Nikko wasn't comforting his girlfriend, and Cal isn't even going to think that thought much less let it dent his happiness, going up and hugging Nikko and never ever letting go again wouldn't go over too well with his father. Likewise, decking those idiot pseudo-druids while they were being dragged away by the police wasn't an option as such, and threatening them would be a bit redundant given how many consecutive life sentences they were looking at.

Still, it's a positive result. The bad guys have been stopped, all's right with the world, and most importantly Nikko is safe and sound and still Nikko enough to be more concerned with someone else's well-being than his own. Even if that someone else is Fiona.

Who is, by the way, very definitely not worthy of Nikko.


End file.
